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Culinary Lavender

What is Culinary Lavender | How to use it | Ideas & Recipes

What is Culinary Lavender

Being in the mint family, lavender is closely related to sage, thyme and rosemary. Lavender is an incredibly versatile herb for cooking. In centuries past, lavender’s aromatic qualities made it a popular flavouring. Today’s restaurants are re-introducing fresh edible flowers as enhancements to both the flavour and appearance of food – and lavender is making an evident comeback.

Lavender is quite pungent, yet, in modern times, it has been largely ignored in the kitchen. It is hard to understand why since rosemary, for example, has a similar sweetly aromatic quality and has earned a place in some of our most traditional dishes.

Historically, lavender has had an important role in the kitchen. Elizabeth I was particularly partial to lavender conserve, and in her time, it was not unusual for lavender to be used in savoury dishes too. One reason for lavender’s popularity as a flavouring in those days, was to disguise the taste of meat that was past its best.

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How to Use Lavender in Your Cooking Adventures

Adaptations to recipes can be made to include lavender in beverages, salads, sauces, vegetables, meats, seafood, chicken and desserts. The uses of lavender are limited only by your imagination. Perhaps the simplest way to enjoy fresh or dried lavender is by brewing a pot of tea (or adding just a hint of it to your favourite tea) and offering it with honey and/or lemon.

Lavender has a sweet, floral flavour, with lemon and citrus notes. Flowers and leaves of the lavender plant can be used fresh, and both buds and stems can be used dried.

Lavender cultivars vary in flavour considerably (depending often on the geographical location), thus you may wish to experiment with various varieties. For culinary purposes, Lavandula angustifolia is the sweetest and not as comphorous as the other species.

You may also like to use lighter flavoured lavandins like Lavandula x intermedia ‘Provence’ or ‘Twickel’ in savoury dishes but prefer the sweeter, lighter flavour of Lavandula angustifolia ‘Munstead’, ‘Hidcote’ or ‘Rosea’ for tea, iced drinks, and desserts.

The potency of the lavender flowers increases with drying, therefore to release the flavourful oils they need to be grounded in an herb or coffee grinder or “mashed” with mortar and pestle. The key to cooking with lavender is to experiment; start out with a small amount of flowers, and add more as you go.

Only choose organic culinary lavender for your cooking needs. Do not eat flowers from florists, nurseries or garden centers. In many cases these flowers have been treated with pesticides not labeled for food crops.

It is best not to wash fresh flowers as they are easily spoilt, so choose the ones that appear the cleanest. There should be no need to clean them since lavender grows high off the ground and most insects and birds avoid it. The only visitors seem to be bees and butterflies.

Pick the flowers in the morning when the dew has dried but the sun as not had time to dissipate the oils. If they are still damp, let them dry out away from direct sunlight as that is inclined to make the flowers open and release their precious oils. Any dampness left on the flowers will soon spoil them, making them wilt and, in time, become mildewed.

If you are using dried lavender, ensure you buy culinary quality which has been specially grown and packaged under hygienic conditions.

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Ideas and Recipes

I believe that recipes are inspirations rather than strict guidelines. The following culinary inspirations will hopefully help you in creating unique culinary lavender masterpieces that will WOW! your family and friends.

In general, you can:

• Use culinary lavender to flavour sweet and savory dishes
• Garnish your beverages, pasteries or platters of food with it
• Throw lavender onto the grill to give meats such as pork or chicken a nice flavour
• Use lavender in lieu of mint or citrus - think cookies, ice cream, cakes, or jams and jellies
• Lavender blends well with recipes containing lemons, almonds, blueberries, apples, peaches and nectarines
• It also blends well with bread, cheese, honey and mustard

Beverages

Add lavender flowers when brewing your favourite cup of tea, when making a summer pitcher of lemonade, or to a glass of champagne - the flowers look beautiful and taste good!

Home-Made Summer Lemonade

Salads

Lavender flowers add a beautiful colour and flavour to salads.

Fresh Herb Garden Salad

Breads

Lavender can easily be substituted for rosemary to lend an exotic flavour to a simple bread recipe. Try focaccia or pizza with a new twist ... a sprincle of culinary lavender.

Lavender Focaccia

Savoury Dishes

Meats, seafood and chicken are often enlivened with lavender. Use it in an Herbes de Provence spice mixture for marinating or dry-rubbing. Place a spring in a saute pan near the end of cooking time, then delaze the pan with wine, vermouth or stock. Finish a lamb, chicken or fish barbecue with a few fresh stems laid directly onto the coals below the meat to add a twist of lavender smoke to the food.

Creamy Lavender Chicken

Lavender Pork Chops on a Grill

For the Sweet Tooth

Desserts made with fresh or dried lavender are a delight. Buttery shortbread or sugar cookies can be enhanced by kneading lavender flowers into them. The same can be added to cheesecake, muffins, shortcake etc.

Lavender Coconut Macaroons

Lavender High-Tea Cookies

Herbes de Provence

This is a French culinary tradition from the sunny kitchen gardens of the south of France. It is made up of an assortment of dried herbs said to reflect those most commonly used in the south of France. The mixture commonly contains basil, fennel seed, lavender, marjoram, rosemary, sage, summer savory and thyme. Then, as now, cooks and gardeners are responsible for creating their own signature blends. Lavender remains an essential part of this Provencal tradition.

Home-Made Herbes de Provence

Lavender Sugar

The flowers can be put in sugar and sealed tightly for a couple of weeks then the sugar can be substituted for ordinary sugar for a cake, buns or custards. Use 1 Tablespoon of dried lavender to 4 cups of sugar.

Lavender Sea Salt

Add a hint of flavour to your every-day salt shaker or grinder. Add 1 Tablespoon of dried lavender to the sea salt cristals.

Lavender Pepper

Mix dried lavender to your pepper grinder - it adds a little more pizzazz to the fresh ground aromatic pepper kernels.

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